Analyzing Social Class and Humanity in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Seinfeld

Analyzing Social Class and Humanity in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Seinfeld

Typically, the relationships between theatre and film are encountered--both pedagogically and theoretically--in terms of authorial influence or aesthetic comparisons. In the first method, an instructor builds a syllabus for a "Theatre and Film" course by illustrating, for example, how Bergman was influenced by Strindberg. In the second method, the aesthetic norms of the theatre (fixed spectatorial distance and stage-bound locations) are compared to those of the cinema (editing and location shooting) to determine which art form is better suited (or "superior") to which material.

My work proposes a broader view of the theatre-film interface, one that relies on intertextuality as its interpretive method. I believe it is valuable-both pedagogically and theoretically-to ask broad questions about the aesthetic, narrative, and ideological exchanges between the history of theatre and contemporary film and television. For example, this paper will study how the "Chinese Restaurant" episode of the sitcom, Seinfeld, intertextually reworks Samuel Beckett's modernist play, Waiting for Godot. In each text, characters encounter an existential plight as they are forced to wait interminably, and thus confront their powerlessness at the hands of larger social forces. As a pedagogical matter, this connection encourages the students to see academic culture in the guise of having to read Beckett's play for my course, not as foreign and alienating, but instead as continuous with their understanding of leisure activities like watching sitcoms. As a theoretical matter, this intertextual connection allows important ideological matters to come into bold relie...

... middle of paper ...

...ng it in light of Godot, we can appreciate something much more fundamental, that Seinfeld is every bit as humanitarian as Godot because it shows how our human frailties militate against our desire to end all human contact with others. Any critic who out-of-hand dismisses the sit-com as trash should for this reason alone be thoroughly distrusted, because the desperate communitarian cultural function of the sitcom has been completed ignored. I suggest that there are reasons we watch sitcoms that are not all reducible to the notion that we are stupid, cultural dupes. Seinfeld, as well as Waiting for Godot, offers us insights into what makes us human. At some basic level, this is a compelling explanation for why we care to watch television as much as it is for why we go to live theatre.

Click the button above to view the complete essay, speech, term paper, or research paper

Need Writing Help?

Seinfeld: The Outing Essay
- In the Outing Episode, the two main characters of the show, Jerry and George, are "outed" in the newspaper by a reporter even though they really aren't gay. The reporter incorrectly discovers that they are "gay" by means of a hoax, and then whenever Jerry and George try to deny it, their "stereotypical" actions convince the reporter again and again that they are gay. The episode plays on two standard gay stereotypes, first, how gay people act and what they look like, and two, the politically correct way to talk about gay people.... [tags: Outing Episode of Seinfeld]:: 6 Works Cited

Waiting for Godot and The House of Bernarda Alba Essay
- In the plays Waiting for Godot and The House of Bernarda Alba, life and death are significant concepts. Life is meaningless in Godot as they merely wait until death, whilst Bernarda Alba depicts futility of life without passion, love or freedom. The House of Bernarda Alba, through Adela’s rebellious spirit signifies living a life that is passionate, while in Waiting for Godot Beckett seems to imply that life is meaningless. Whilst Waiting for Godot focuses more on the metaphorical aspect of death, The House of Bernarda Alba takes on the literal death through Adela’s suicide.... [tags: Waiting For Godot Essays]:: 2 Works Cited

Essay about The Seinfeld Axiom
- In his book Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them, David Anderegg uses an episode of Seinfeld, entitled “The Abstinence,” to make an argument about nerds and sex, called the Seinfeld Axiom. His argument states that the absence of sex in George’s life, caused by his girlfriend’s Mononucleosis, actually caused him to get smarter and when he finally has sex in the end of the episode and lost touch with his new knowledge, that it was sex that caused him to get “stupid” again. Yet, deeper into the episode, Anderegg blatantly ignores that a second main character, Elaine, faces abstinence with opposite effects.... [tags: Television]:: 4 Works Cited

Essay about Waiting for Daisy
- In any given time it seems as though we are always waiting. Waiting for someone or something, waiting to hear news, whether good or bad, waiting for a time to go and do something, and waiting to see test results. In novels, plays, and movies a common theme of waiting, is waiting for someone or something. In The Great Gatsby, Mr. Gatsby is waiting for Daisy similarly how in Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot. Waiting is something everyone does and it can have its own meaning depending on the person and the situation because each person waits differently.... [tags: The Great Gatsby, waiting, Fitzgerald]:: 2 Works Cited

Entrapment in Waiting for Godot and Existence and Existents Essay
- Entrapment in Waiting for Godot and Existence and Existents Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot has been criticized as a play in which nothing happens-twice. Not only are Vladimir and Estragon, the two primary characters, unable to change their circumstances in the first act, the second act seems to be a replay of this existential impotence. Vladimir's remark "Nothing to be done," at the opening of the play, may be said to characterize the whole. Estragon complains that "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" (Beckett 27).... [tags: Waiting for Godot Essays]:: 3 Works Cited

Essay about The Meaninglessness of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
- The Meaninglessness of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot In Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett produces a truly cryptic work. On first analyzing the play, one is not sure of what, if anything, happens or of the title character's significance. In attempting to unravel the themes of the play, interpreters have extracted a wide variety symbolism from the Godot's name. Some, taking an obvious hint, have proposed that Godot represents God and that the play is centered on religious symbolism.... [tags: Waiting for Godot Essays]

Society and Sexuality in Waiting for the Barbarians and The History of Sexuality
- Society and Sexuality in Waiting for the Barbarians, and The History of Sexuality Within our modern minds reside two very different ways in which we deal with the subject of sexuality. The conceptual framework of modern society, to some extent, has developed out of past notions about the body. We can see that springing from our historical roots, issues concerning sexuality have been dealt with through mutual feelings of desire and disgust. The relationship between these two opposed feelings arises from a dual sense of our awareness of our sexuality.... [tags: Waiting for the Barbarians Essays]

Entangled and Entraped in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot Essay example
- Entangled and Entraped in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot Set against the barren dramatic landscape of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", humanity seems to exist with an interconnected, interdependent, and interchangeable set of relations. Early in the play Beckett introduces the tether as a central metaphor in order to explore the moral, social, and existential implications of this complex web of relations. Pozzo and Lucky are literally tied to one another. Though less tangible, Vladimir and Estragon are joined by an equally powerful emotional bond.... [tags: Waiting for Godot Essays]:: 1 Works Cited

Essay on SEINFELD
- SEINFELD: THE UNTOLD STORY Throughout Seinfeld’s eight-season stint on network television the show and its creator’s have stereotyped everything from young Puerto Rican boys to Jewish Priests. The main stereotype of this sit-com is the very florid portrayal of the generational age groups of the characters. The main characters represent the beginning of the Generation X culture. The parents and relatives of Jerry Seinfeld and that of George Costanza present the presence of the members of the Silent or GI generation.... [tags: essays research papers]

Essay on Seinfeld
- Seinfeld It was a warm September Thursday night in 1991. I was engaged in my favorite past time of "channel surfing" when a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Displayed on my favorite, "20 inch friend", (also known as my usual Saturday night date), appeared a remarkable treasure. There before my eyes was a sitcom called Seinfeld. From that moment on I was astounded to find that not even great sitcom's such as my beloved Mash and I Love Lucy were as captivating or enthralling.... [tags: essays research papers]